Approximately 42 billion Americans suffer from mental illness yearly, which is roughly 18 percent of the United States’ population. Those patients who do seek treatment have a wide variety of options available to them. One of the most popular forms of treatment is integrative psychotherapy. By definition, this treatment method looks at uniting commonalities between various schools of techniques for effective cognitive, behavioral, and physiological systems within the body.
The only real drawback to integrative psychotherapy is the time and energy investment it requires on both the patient and provider’s parts. It is not a quick fix, which can mean making slow progression throughout treatment at times. However, it is one of the most surefire ways to find what does and does not work in therapy with the ease of trading out or supplementing one technique over another. When all facets are considered, there are three, key benefits for the patient when using integrative psychotherapy.
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A Benefit for Flexible Treatment
Probably the main reason why integrative psychotherapy works is the fact that it can make for a very flexible treatment path for the patient. This means easing the stressors that the anxiety of seeking treatment can bring. For some people, lowering stress through flexible treatment can mean allowing for fewer mood swings or for the immune system to not be under as much stress in the long term.
At the forefront of beginning integrative psychotherapy lies accepting that there is an illness that the patient must cope with. Coming to accept that they have something that needs to be addressed and that there is a reliable treatment option available to address it, is the first hurdle many patients struggle against. Integrative psychotherapy naturally has ways built into its theory and practice for beginning treatment.
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Dealing with Negative Patterns
Integrative psychotherapy can also lead to overcoming negative patterns, behaviors, and lifestyle choices with ease. According to Verdant Oak Behavioral Health, some of the most challenging aspects of treating a patient with integrative psychotherapy are to target physical and mental habits that have been allowed to form over the years before treatment began. Some of the physical habits can include nail biting or self-harm in the form of alcoholism or cutting. Negative thought patterns such as self-esteem issues also need to be addressed.
With integrative psychotherapy, these items can be considered one at a time or in connection to one another. Though some therapies target self-esteem alone, some providers have found that by treating something like self-esteem will also naturally lead to treating other behaviors. Some of these connected behaviors can include addressing harmful thoughts or actions to the self or even addressing something like hygiene concerns.
Some patients who experience self-esteem concerns face this negative behavior most of all because they do not feel like showering due to the depression that comes along with poor self-esteem. Simply finding the energy to rise from bed and take a shower or a bath is exhausting physically and mentally for some patients. For other patients, though, taking a shower is actually, physically painful. The act of raising their arms over their head or moving around is extremely taxing. Integrative psychotherapy that addresses such self-esteem issues also helps patients to address ways to go about something like bathing or showering to lessen fears of pain or exhaustion.
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Benefits for Children
In the case of children with autism and learning difficulties, these therapies can address the most concerning symptoms first and foremost for both the patient and the family. Some children who experience hyperactivity or depression as a result of some diagnosis are able to address these concerns differently than adults because integrative psychotherapy is so versatile and flexible. At the same time, because a family aspect is considered with this type of therapy, family members are also able to address some stressors they experience while rearing these children.
One study indicates that 79 percent of families and children involved with treatment were able to progress without an inflated sense of reality, too, meaning that they understood the time investment would mean negating concerns for the short-term and the long-term. Therefore, children are able to learn ways to cope with their illness early on in life, thus helping them to plan ahead for the future with a sense of reassurance and guidance.
Integrative psychotherapy may seem to be rather the intimidating type of treatment for a patient, but it works more seamlessly than it appears. So many types of psychotherapy connect to one another in ways that are theoretical and practically natural that it does not make sense not to place them together.
